![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Considerable attention is devoted to Catherine’s difficult early years in Russia during the reign of Empress Elizabeth, with the young Grand Duchess turning to lovers and also biding her time, cultivating support by converting to the Russian Orthodox Church and learning to speak the language fluently. This unfortunate youth had been scarred physically and mentally by smallpox, showed no interest in her, and the marriage was a disaster. Taken to Russia during her adolescence, she was speedily betrothed and married to Grand Duke Peter, heir to the throne. Already known for major biographies of Nicholas and Alexandra, and of Peter the Great, Massie has now written an equally full and absorbing life of the late eighteenth-century reigning Empress.īorn Sophia Augusta Fredericka of the modest German principality Anhalt-Zerbst in 1729, she owed her destiny largely to her ambitious mother, related by marriage to the ruling Russian and Swedish dynasties. ![]()
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